Ephrata1966 wrote:What was bad about the location? I believe you, but do you mean "bad" in terms of crime or just not a good location for a supermarket? Personally I'm kind of astounded that the former A&P (now Rouses) in the French Quarter has survived as a grocery store for all these decades. A&P had its own chain of liquor stores in the Northeastern states, but I guess never tried any in Louisiana. It's a shame because that French Quarter spot would be absolutely perfect for a liquor store. Imagine just how mobbed it would get during Mardi Gras, St Patrick's Day, etc. Sure, the Rouses does sell booze, but the selection is skimpy, and they keep all the spirits on display behind the counter to prevent shoplifting. Buying spirits there feels like shopping at one of the State Stores in Pennsylvania in the old days. Or might as well be the Virginia ABC stores, or even the LCBO stores in Canada.

The Mid-City area where this store was located is a high crime area. It just isn't safe, and attracts a really bad element.

The French Quarter store survives because it's the only full service supermarket in the French Quarter area of town. It's also a novelty destination store; it gets a lot of nostalgic foot traffic, including me several times. It's a very cramped store, but a full service supermarket with a full deli and meat market. The liquor stores were usually due to ordinances that required separate entrances for the liquor area. There were some in Louisiana, but they weren't required or popular. Folks here want to pay for their meat and beer together.

Ephrata1966 wrote:The Mid-City area where this store was located is a high crime area. It just isn't safe, and attracts a really bad element.

The French Quarter store survives because it's the only full service supermarket in the French Quarter area of town. It's also a novelty destination store; it gets a lot of nostalgic foot traffic, including me several times. It's a very cramped store, but a full service supermarket with a full deli and meat market. The liquor stores were usually due to ordinances that required separate entrances for the liquor area. There were some in Louisiana, but they weren't required or popular. Folks here want to pay for their meat and beer together.

Gosh, why would Albertsons ever have thought Mid-City was a good place for a store? Perhaps they were given "urban renewal" dollars from the local government? I never personally visited that store, but I've seen pictures of both the interior and exterior, and it was so upscale-looking that I never would have guessed it was in a seedy part of town. And I looked in Google Street View just now and the Exxon looks a lot nicer than the average gas station.

Actually the A&P liquor stores I was thinking of (New Jersey was one state that had many of them) really had nothing to do with A&P supermarkets except being part of the same company. Many of these liquor stores were nowhere near A&P supermarkets, but a number of them were conversions of 50's-era A&P supermarket buildings. I know nobody likes to travel far to the nearest supermarket, but wouldn't a liquor store be the perfect fit (especially because people in the French Quarter love to drink) for that spot on a Royal Street? And because the drugstores, grocery stores, etc in New Orleans all sell booze, there aren't too many dedicated liquor stores in the city, so I was thinking this spot could become a niche liquor store with a bigger, better selection of booze than any of the other food/drug/convenience stores around.

Zatarain's may have started as local to that area, but I've seen those in stores here in NY State so they have apparently spread out quite a bit.

Ephrata1966 wrote:Actually the A&P liquor stores I was thinking of (New Jersey was one state that had many of them) really had nothing to do with A&P supermarkets except being part of the same company.

Probably much more common in NJ due to their rules that supermarkets aren't allowed to have liquor (including beer) which is a more unusual setup than other states.

BillyGr wrote:Zatarain's may have started as local to that area, but I've seen those in stores here in NY State so they have apparently spread out quite a bit.

That is indeed correct. Zatarain's has spread out fairly well, but you'll see a lot more here than in New York state.

BillyGr wrote:Probably much more common in NJ due to their rules that supermarkets aren't allowed to have liquor (including beer) which is a more unusual setup than other states.

In Louisiana, the law was that they had to have a separate entrance. That changed when Kroger started building greenhouse stores. A store was granted a permit in Shreveport to put it inside the store, as the law no longer made sense since alcohol can be tracked in modern POS systems. The city of Shreveport reversed the permit, only to be challenged in court because they had a permit issued based on the plans. The city lost. Albertsons came around and sued behind Kroger because their permits were denied, and they didn't feel that was fair. Albertsons won as well. After that, the law was dropped.